Postmortem

by Patricia Cornwell

  “Don’t get me started.”

  “Yeah, you and me together. I tell them, you know what CSI stands for? It stands for Can’t Stand It. Because when I hear that term or acronym or whatever the hell it is, I think to myself, I can’t stand it. I really can’t stand it. You tell me, Pete. When you was getting started, was there such a thing as a CSI?”

  “TV invented it. They was crime scene techs in the real world. Or most times, people like you and me got out our fingerprint kit, camera, measuring tape, and all the rest, and did it our damn self. I didn’t need a friggin’ laser to map a crime scene and get all the dimensions right. Luminol works just as good as all these new chemicals and fancy crime scene lights. Been mixing up luminol in a spray bottle and using it all my life. I don’t need the Jetsons to work a homicide.”

  “I won’t go that far. A lot of the new stuff? So much better, there’s no comparison. I can work a scene without totally trashing the place, if nothing else. You know, some old lady gets burglarized, and no more ruining everything she owns with black dusting powder. Technology at least lets me be considerate. But I don’t have a magic box. You got one?”

  “I keep forgetting to recharge it,” he said.

  “You ever come to Baltimore, Pete?”

  “Hadn’t heard that expression in a while,” Marino said. “The case-in-a-lab-coat-pocket thing you said. So guess what? I’m over forty. You have some files landing. You checking your e-mail as we complain? You ever come to New York?”

  He was scanning pages of the police report, and Dr. Lester’s preliminary autopsy findings.

  “It’s not the way I started,” Bacardi said. “I still believe in talking to people and looking at motive, the old-fashioned way. Sure, I come to New York. Or I can. No big deal. We should exchange yearbook pictures first. But I promise I look better since I had my face transplant.”

  Marino grabbed a Sharp’s out of the refrigerator. He had to meet this one. She was something.

  “I’m looking at the photograph of the bracelet right now. Jesus—money,” Bacardi said. “It’s the same as the others. All three of them ten-karat. A herringbone design, really thin. Based on the scale in this photo, it looks like your bracelet—just like the other two—is ten inches long. Sort of thing you’d buy in a mall kiosk or on the Internet for forty, fifty bucks. One interesting difference that strikes me right off the bat is in my case and Greenwich, the bodies weren’t indoors. It appears the victims were out looking to score drugs for sex, and got picked up by someone cruising for an opportunity. Your victim—Terri Bridges—have a history of drug abuse or a secret life that might have left her open for that kind of thing happening to her?”

  “No information to make me think she was into oxys or anything else. All I can tell you is what you’re looking at. Her STAT alcohol was negative. Too early for drug screens, but no evidence of drugs at her apartment. We also don’t know that in her case, the killer wasn’t cruising for victims. Assuming the boyfriend didn’t do it. Or even if he did, it was New Year’s Eve. She was the only person home in her apartment building. Nobody directly across the street, either, except one lady who wasn’t looking out her window about the time we suspect Terri was murdered. Supposedly. And this same lady had a couple stories that got my antenna going. Like this weird one about a puppy. Who would give a sick puppy to someone as a present? Knowing it’s going to die.”

  “Ted Bundy.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “So maybe the guy’s driving around, sees an opportunity last night,” Bacardi said.

  “I don’t know,” Marino said. “I need to get a better feel for the neighborhood, plan to go back out in a minute, prowling. But I can tell you already it was pretty deserted last night. That’s New York. Weekends and holidays, and people who live here get the hell out of Dodge. And after all my years of doing this, one thing I’ve learned. There’s never a formula. Maybe our guy was on good behavior and had a relapse. Maybe that guy is Oscar Bane. Maybe it’s somebody else. There’s the small problem of timing. Your two cases was five friggin’ years ago.”

  “No figuring out why people do what they do. Or when. But relapse is a good word for it. I think serial killers have a compulsion just like drinking and drugging.”

  The refrigerator sucked open as Marino got another Sharp’s.

  “Maybe there’s a reason it’s under control for a while,” her friendly voice said in his ear. “Then stress, a breakup, you get fired, get in financial trouble, and off the wagon you go.”

  “In other words, everything.”

  “Yeah. Everything can do it. I’m looking at what you just sent and right off I’m wondering why the ME’s pended the case. This Dr. Lester isn’t sure it’s a homicide?”

  “She and the DA don’t get along.”

  “Sounds like you got a problem with the boyfriend, if there’s no homicide.”

  “No shit,” Marino said. “Kind of hard to charge someone with pending. But Berger’s brought in another ME for a second opinion. Dr. Scarpetta.”

  “You’re lying.” Bacardi sounded like a fan.

  Marino wished he hadn’t brought up Scarpetta. Then he reasoned it wasn’t right to withhold information, and having Scarpetta involved was important. Whenever she showed up, everything changed. Besides, if Bacardi was going to turn on him, now was a good time to do it and get it over with.

  He said, “She’s all over the Internet at the moment. Not in a good way. I’m only telling you because you’re going to hear about it.”

  A long pause and Bacardi replied, “You’re the guy who worked with her in Charleston. It was on the news here this morning. Heard it on the radio.”

  It had never occurred to Marino that Internet gossip might end up on the news, and he felt sucker-punched.

  “No mention of names,” Bacardi said, and she didn’t sound as friendly. “Just that she was supposedly assaulted by a colleague while she was chief down there. An investigator she worked with for a long time. These shock jocks were talking about it, saying the expected bullshit, mostly making fun of her and getting off on imagining whatever was done to her. I was pretty disgusted.”

  “Maybe if you and me are ever sitting down face-to-face, I’ll tell you the story,” he surprised himself by saying.

  He’d never told anybody the story, except Nancy. He’d told her as much as he could remember, and she’d listened with that sincere look on her face that started to annoy the living shit out of him after a while.

  “You don’t need to explain yourself to me,” Bacardi said. “I don’t know you, Pete. What I do know is people say all kinds of things, and you don’t know what’s true until you decide to make it your mission. It’s not my mission to know what’s true about your life, okay? Just what’s true about what happened to my lady, the kid in Greenwich, and now your lady in New York. I’ll send you my files electronically, what I’ve got, anyway. You ever want to dig through all of it, you’ll need a week locked up in a room with a case of Advil.”

  “I’m told there’s no DNA in your case and the kid,” Marino said. “No sign of sexual assault.”

  “That’s what’s called the nightmare of multiple choice.”

  “Maybe we’ll have some crab cakes in Baltimore, and I’ll tell you,” he said. “Don’t draw conclusions from gossip. Or when you come here. You like steak houses?”

  She didn’t answer.

  It was as if someone had tethered his emotions to a cinder block, he felt so depressed. He was ruined. That Gotham Gotcha asshole had ruined him. He meets a nice woman named after his favorite rum, and now she’s acting as if he’s got smallpox and spits when he talks.

  “These VICAP forms, shit like that?” Bacardi said. “Check the boxes, multiple choice like school when there’s more than one answer? Literally, no sign of sexual assault, except in both cases there was evidence of a lube job. Some Vaseline-type stuff that was negative for sperm. Vaginally in my lady. Anally in the Greenwich boy. A mixture of DNA, c
ontaminated as hell. No hits in CODIS. We figure since they were found nude and dumped outdoors, all kinds of contaminants stuck to the petroleum jelly or whatever it was. Imagine how many people’s DNA would be in a Dumpster? Plus dog hairs, cat fur.”

  “Kind of interesting,” Marino said. “Because the DNA’s messed up in this case, too. We got a hit on an old lady in a wheelchair who ran over some kid in Palm Beach.”

  “She ran him over in her wheelchair? She was speeding, busted a red light in her wheelchair? I’m sorry. Did somebody put in a different movie and not tell me?”

  “What’s also interesting,” Marino said, walking toward the bathroom with the cordless phone, “the DNA from your cases are in CODIS. And the DNA from our case was just run in CODIS. So guess what that means?”

  He covered the mouthpiece with his hand while he peed.

  “I’m still hung up on the wheelchair,” Bacardi said.

  “What it means,” he said, when it was safe to talk again, “is there’s a different mixture of DNA profiles. In other words, you didn’t get a hit on the old lady from Palm Beach, because her DNA wasn’t on your victims. For whatever reason. I think you should come up here and sit down with everyone. As soon as possible, like tomorrow morning,” Marino said. “You got a car?”

  “Whenever you guys need. I can be there in a few hours.”

  “It’s my belief,” Marino said, “when things are this different, they got something in common.”

  15

  “Nobody’s accusing anybody of anything,” Benton said on the phone, talking to Scarpetta’s administrative assistant, Bryce. “I was just wondering when you looked at it first thing, what might have entered your mind . . . Really . . . That’s a very good point . . . Well, that’s interesting. I’ll tell her.”

  He hung up.

  Scarpetta was only halfway paying attention to whatever he and Bryce had been discussing. She was far more interested in several photographs of Terri Bridges’s master bathroom, and had placed them in a row on a space she’d cleared on Benton’s desk. They showed a spotless white ceramic-tile floor and a white marble countertop. Next to a sink with ornate gold fixtures was a built-in vanity arranged with perfumes, a brush, and a comb. Attached to the rose-painted wall was a gold-framed oval mirror, and it was askew, but so slightly it was barely perceptible. As far as she could tell, it was the only thing in the bathroom that looked even remotely disturbed.

  “Your hair,” Benton said to her as his printer woke up.

  “What about it?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  Another close-up of the body, this one taken from a different angle after the towel had been removed. Terri’s achondroplastic features were more typical than Oscar’s. She had a somewhat flattened nose and pronounced forehead, and her arms and legs were thick and about half the length they ought to be, her fingers thick and stubby.

  Benton swiveled around and removed a sheet of paper from the printer, and handed it to her.

  “Do I have to look at that again?” she said.

  It was the photograph from this morning’s Gotham Gotcha column.

  “Bryce said for you to take a good look at your hair,” Benton said.

  “It’s covered,” she said. “All I can see is a little fringe of it.”

  “His point. It used to be shorter. He showed the photo to Fielding, who shares his opinion.”

  She ran her fingers through her hair, realizing what Bryce and Fielding meant. Over the past year, she’d let her hair grow out another inch.

  “You’re right,” she said. “Bryce—Mr. Hygiene—is always nagging me about it. It’s that in-between length where I can’t completely cover it, and yet it’s not long enough to tuck in. So there’s always a little fringe of it exposed.”

  “He and Fielding both say the same thing,” Benton said. “This photograph was taken recently. As recently as the past six months, because both of them believe this was taken since they started working for you. They’re basing this on the length of your hair, the watch you’re wearing, and the face shield is the same type you use.”

  “It’s just a face shield. Not like our fancy safety glasses with different neon-colored frames to cheer up the place.”

  “Anyway, I’m inclined to agree with them,” Benton said.

  “That says something. Because, obviously, if it was taken in Watertown, they’re on the list of suspects. And they don’t recall noticing anybody else taking it?”

  “That’s the difficulty,” Benton said. “Everybody and their brother who’s through your place, as I pointed out earlier, could have done it. You can tell from your demeanor, the expression on your face, that you had no idea it was being taken. A quick picture taken with a cell phone. That’s my guess.”

  “It wasn’t Marino, then,” she said. “He’s certainly not been within camera range.”

  “I suspect he hates having that column on the Internet even more than you do, Kay. It wouldn’t make any sense to think Marino’s behind this.”

  She looked through more photographs of Terri Bridges’s body on the bathroom floor, perplexed by the thin gold chain around her left ankle. She handed a close-up to Benton.

  “Oscar told the police he’d never seen it before,” he said. “And since you don’t seem to know where it came from, I’m going to conclude that either Oscar told you he knew nothing about it or he didn’t mention it at all.”

  “Suffice it to say, I don’t know anything about it,” she said. “But it doesn’t look like something she’d wear. For one thing, it doesn’t fit. It’s much too tight. Either she’d had the bracelet for a long time and had gained weight, or someone gave it to her without realizing or even caring what size she needed. I don’t think she bought it for herself, in other words.”

  “So I’ll make my sexist comment,” Benton said. “A man is more likely to make a mistake like that than another woman. Had a woman bought this for her, she likely would be aware that Terri has thick ankles.”

  “Oscar knows all about dwarfism, of course,” Scarpetta said. “He’s extremely body-conscious. He’s less likely to buy the wrong size because he’s intimately familiar with her.”

  “That, and he denied having ever seen the bracelet before.”

  “If the person you were in love with would see you only once a week at a predetermined time and place of her choosing, what might enter your mind after a while?” Scarpetta said.

  “She’s seeing someone else,” Benton said.

  “Another question. If I’m asking about the bracelet, what does that imply?”

  “Oscar never mentioned it to you.”

  “I suspect Oscar has a deep-seated fear that Terri was seeing someone,” Scarpetta replied. “To consciously deal with that would be to inflict an injury he can’t endure. I don’t care how shocked he was when he discovered her body, if that’s really what happened. He should have noticed the ankle bracelet. His not bringing it up says far more than if he had volunteered it, in my opinion.”

  “He fears it was a gift from someone else,” Benton said. “Of interest to us, of course, is if she really was seeing someone else. Because that person could be her killer.”

  “Possibly.”

  “It could also be argued that Oscar killed her because he discovered she was seeing someone else,” Benton said.

  “Do you have any reason to think she was?” she asked.

  “I’m going to accept that you don’t know the answer, either. But if she was, and he gave her a piece of jewelry, why would she wear it when Oscar was coming over?”

  “I suppose she could say she bought it herself. But I don’t know why she’d wear it at all. It didn’t fit.”

  She looked at another photograph of clothing in the tub, as if dropped there: pink bedroom slippers, and a pink robe slit open from the collar to the cuffs, and a red lacy bra, unhooked in front with the straps cut.

  She leaned across the desk, handing the photograph to him.

  “Most likely her wrists
were already bound behind her back when the killer removed her robe, her bra,” she said. “That would explain cutting the straps, cutting open the sleeves.”

  “Suggesting she was quickly subdued by her assailant,” he said. “A blitz attack. She didn’t see it coming. Whether it was after she opened her door, or after he was already inside her apartment. He bound her so he could control her. Then he dealt with getting her clothing off.”

  “He didn’t need to cut her clothing off if his goal was to sexually assault her. All he had to do was open the front of her robe.”

  “To induce terror. Total domination. All consistent with a sadistic sexual homicide. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t Oscar. Doesn’t mean it was.”

  “And the absence of her panties? Unless they’re simply not mentioned in the report. Rather unusual to have a bra on under your robe, but no panties. I’m assuming they’ll check the scissors for fibers to see if that’s what was used to cut off her clothing. As for any fibers that might be on whatever Oscar was wearing? One would expect fibers from her body, from the towel, to have been transferred to him while he was sitting in there, holding her.”

  She found several photographs of kitchen scissors on the floor next to the toilet. Nearby was the flex-cuff, or disposable restraint, that had bound her wrists. It was severed through the loop. Something about it bothered her. She realized what it was, and she handed the photograph to Benton.

  “Notice anything unusual?” she asked.

  “Back in my early days with the FBI, we used handcuffs, not flex-cuffs. And needless to say, we would never use flex-cuffs on patients.”

  It was his way of admitting he wasn’t an expert.

  “This one’s colorless, almost transparent,” she said. “Every flex-cuff I’ve ever seen is black, yellow, or white.”

  “Just because you haven’t seen it . . .”